The Turkish government has requested that Twitter sets up an office in the country so that it can exert tighter control over the social network.

Facebook and Twitter were widely used to spread information during the recent anti-government protests in the nation, with a dozen tweeters later arrested.

"When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this," said Turkey's transport and communications minister Binali Yildrim. "There needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one."

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Twitter is yet to respond to the request, but BBC News claims to have heard from an inside source that it has no plans to establish a base in Turkey.

Facebook has revealed that it has not received any government data requests following the protests, issuing a statement clarifying that any requests of that nature will be directed towards the proper legal channels.

The social network did remove pages promoting activism in Turkey, but insisted that this was because they violated its policy on 'fake profiles'.